A mail insertion system or a “mailpiece inserter” is commonly employed for producing mailpieces intended for mass mail communications. Such mailpiece inserters are typically used by organizations such as banks, insurance companies and utility companies for producing a large volume of specific mail communications where the contents of each mailpiece are directed to a particular addressee. Also, other organizations, such as direct mailers, use mailpiece inserters for producing mass mailings where the contents of each mailpiece are substantially identical with respect to each addressee.
In many respects, a typical inserter system resembles a manufacturing assembly line. Sheets and other raw materials (i.e., a web of paper stock, enclosures, and envelopes) enter the inserter system as inputs. Various modules or workstations in the inserter system work cooperatively to process the sheets until a finished mail piece is produced. Typically, inserter systems prepare mail pieces by arranging preprinted sheets of material into a collation, i.e., the content material of the mail piece, on a transport deck. The collation of preprinted sheets may continue to a chassis module where additional sheets or inserts may be added based upon predefined criteria, e.g., an insert being sent to addressees in a particular geographic region. Subsequently, the collation may be folded and placed into envelopes. Once filled, the envelopes are closed, sealed, weighed, and sorted. A postage meter may then be used to apply postage indicia based upon the weight and/or size of the mail piece.
The capacity, configuration and features of each inserter system depend upon the needs of each customer and/or installation. Until recently, mailpiece inserters were limited to two basic configurations, i.e., low-volume inserters capable of producing between about 5K-10K mailpieces monthly, and high-volume inserters capable of producing in excess of 100K mailpieces daily. To contrast the differences in greater detail, low volume inserters may occupy the space of a conventional office copier and generally will cost less than about twenty-thousand dollars ($20,000). High-volume inserters may extent over 100 feet in length and cost in excess of five million dollars ($5,000,000). Only recently have manufacturers introduced models having an intermediate capacity, i.e., producing between 50K-100K mailpieces monthly. Exemplary models fulfilling these specifications are the DI 900 and DI 950 Model inserters produced by Pitney Bowes Inc., located in Stamford, Conn., USA.
These inserters, whether in the low, intermediate or high-volume categories, typically require the use of “preprinted” sheets which are presented to the various downstream devices by a feed module for subsequent processing. That is, a mailpiece job run is printed to produce an “ordered” stack of mailpiece content material which may be fed to the mailpiece inserter. Scan codes disposed in the margin of the first or last sheet of each mailpiece document provide the instructions necessary to process the mailpiece, i.e., whether additional inserts will be added, how the content material is to be folded (C-fold, Z-fold, etc.) and/or what size envelope will the content material be contained. To facilitate communication of these instructions, a user computer and a printing device are typically network connected to the mailpiece inserter such that scan codes can be easily printed and interpreted.
While it has long been desirable to print mailpiece content material “on-demand”, and/or “just-in-time”, to facilitate the flow and handling of mailpiece content material, certain processing and mechanical limitations on print operations have preempted the physical integration of printing devices with mailpiece inserters. More specifically, the lengthy time required to process and print complex print jobs has provided little motivation to physically integrate the two processes/devices. Furthermore, difficulties associated with matching the throughput of the printer with downstream devices of the mailpiece inserter, i.e., a lack of throughput compatibility between printers and mailpiece inserters, has also mitigated practical integration.
To better understand the difficulties, consider, for example, a complex print job containing some fifty-thousand (50,000) sheets of mailpiece content material. When employing conventional print control logic, spoolers and print drivers, the time required to process the print job (excluding print time) will nominally consume several hours. Thereafter, the time required to print the spooled data, (even when printing at the maximum speed of some of the most advanced, commercially-available printers, which print at a speed of about fifty-five (55) pages per minute) can span an additional fifteen (15) hours (i.e., 50,000 sheets×1 min/55 sheets×1 hour/60 min). Consequently, a print job for a mailpiece inserter can consume some eighteen (18) hours before mailpieces can be stacked and/or fed to the first station or module of a mailpiece inserter.
While conventional operating systems employ a spool file to free up the application software e.g., document processing software such as MS Word® (MS Word is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation) during print operations, mailpiece inserters cannot begin operations, i.e., processing mailpiece content material, until the print job is complete. In addition to the time required for processing/printing, should an error occur during print processing, the entire print job must be re-run or processed again in an attempt to rectify the error. Moreover, most printing errors are not visible or apparent until the entire print job is complete, i.e., which, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, can consume the better part of a full day.
A need, therefore, exists for a method and system which enables mailpiece content material to be printed “on demand” while mitigating/eliminating errors when processing complex print jobs. The method and system, therefore, operates to facilitate/enhance the flow, handling and accuracy of printed content material